Chapter One
How Soccer Explains
the Gangster's Paradise
Red Star Belgrade is the most beloved, most successful
soccer team in Serbia. Like nearly every club in
Europe and Latin America, it has a following of unruly
fans capable of terrific violence. But at Red Star the violent
fans occupy a place of honor, and more than that.
They meet with club officials to streamline the organizational
flow chart of their gangs. Their leaders receive
stipends. And as part of this package, they have access
to office space in the team's headquarters in the uppermiddle
class neighborhood of Topcider.
The gangs have influence, in large measure,
because they've won it with intimidation. A few months
before I arrived in Belgrade to learn about the club's
complicity in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, Red Star
fan clubs had burst into ...
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